The market was up Tyers Street at the top of the road, round past the shops then a long straight stretch between the blocks of brown flats on both sides of the road. All the blocks on the Vauxhall Gardens Estate were good for playing run-outs up and down the stairs and round the balconies, but it was a long walk anywhere if you had to lift shopping. My mum had the wicker trolley and she had me, so she was jollying me along and swinging my hand in hers, getting me to sing Oh, I am a jolly ploughboy as we went. There was a pub up the top on the corner with Black Prince Road before you crossed over into Lambeth Walk called The Jolly Cockneys. It was always busy with people spilling out on the pavement in between doing the shopping, and I liked it because the man and the woman with hats and feathers and white buttons sewn all over their clothes were doing a dance on the painted sign over the door, and my mum said they were the Pearly King and Queen. Because not everybody thought we should be holding hands, my mum let me go and walked ahead, only holding my hand again to cross over the road into the market. But then because I was looking back over the road at the sign and dragging my feet, she had to go on keeping hold. ‘Come on,’ I said, and she knew I wouldn’t move until she sang with me Any evening, any day ... She didn’t want to because lots of people were going past looking at us and she thought it was silly. I dug my heels in and slid on the wet pavement and caught hold of the lamp post on the corner with my other hand so she couldn’t go in under the awnings between the shops and the wooden stalls.

‘Will you come?’ she said, stamping her foot.

‘You’ll find them all ...’ and I looked at her.

‘Doing the Lambeth Walk?’ said Lottie. It was her and Charlie, our neighbours, on their way home with Charlie pulling the trolley. Charlie grinned and said, ‘Oi! You should be helping your mum, not dragging her back!’

My mum shook her head at them and let go my hand. She didn’t want people to notice us but the man on the first stall was peeling off a cabbage and looking at her.

‘How are the boys?’ Lottie said. They didn’t have children and Manus and Connor were their favourites.

‘Fine,’ my mum said. ‘Not as much trouble as this one. Not long now?’

‘Two weeks,’ Lottie said.

‘Sorry to see you go,’ my mum said. ‘Will I get them to write?’

She shrugged and said, ‘We’ll be staying with Charlie’s sister first down in Swindon, until we get our own place.’

‘Shame it’s all going,’ Charlie said, looking back at the market.